Starting with the Unexpected (18 page)

My phone beeped. Jordan wanted to know where the hell the request for a cat had come from, and that he wasn’t ever going to change a litter box.

Well, that meant he was either sitting in his car, waiting in line to get his papers, or he’d gotten his papers and was about to head home. I took a chance and called him.

“Where are you?” I asked when he picked up, not bothering with a greeting.

“Sitting in my car behind that douche-bag you can’t stand,” he told me. “You know, the one that never shuts up?”

“At least if you’re in your car, you don’t have to talk to him,” I said. “Think you’ll be home soon?”

“Yeah. You and Marcus done fighting?”

I cleared my throat, uncomfortable with the way the
conversation was going. “Well….”

The exasperated sigh on the other end of the line made me wince. “What did you do, Zach?”

“I didn’t do it,” I protested and then launched into an explanation of what happened.

To Jordan’s credit, he simply listened while I raged, and when I finally stopped, he said, “Well this is all kinds of fucked up, isn’t it?”

“You think?” I asked sarcastically. “And seriously, for him to bring up Brandon?”

“Well, you two are kind of an explosion waiting to happen when you’re in the same room together,” Jordan reminded him. “But I’ll admit that what he said and how he said it was a really dickhead move on his part. But hey, you know what this means.”

“That my boyfriend’s being an asshole?” I asked wryly. Because he’d definitely been a serious asshole before he left to go help out the skanky bitch.

“Your boyfriend is allowed to lose his temper once in a while,” Jordan said. He probably rolled his eyes when he said it, but it’s not like I could see him to know for sure. “But hey, think about it this way. Make-up sex.”

“Yeah. Not helping,” I told him.

“Wow, you really are upset,” Jordan said with a whistle. “Are you mad as in you want to rip someone’s face off, or are you mad as in you want to sulk for a while and make Marcus feel a little guilty when he gets home?”

“A little from column A, mostly from column B,” I admitted. “It pissed me off, but now I’m just kind of….”

“Throwing a temper tantrum?” Jordan supplied.

“Fuck you,” I said with a laugh. “Yeah. I’m throwing a temper tantrum.”

“Aw, you admitted it,” Jordan said, sniffling melodramatically. “I’m so proud.”

“I’m hanging up now,” I told him.

“Sure. If Marcus isn’t back by the time I am, you can help me. Maybe it’ll help you work off your grump in time to jump your boyfriend when he gets home.”

“Right,” I snorted and hung up. If Marcus wasn’t back yet, I could guess he was still mad at me. Either that, or the little bitch was whining at him longer than I expected her to.

Yeah. I was definitely throwing a temper tantrum. It didn’t help that, by the time Jordan got home, Marcus hadn’t come back. I knew because I’d spent the time staring out the window to watch for his car in case he went straight to his apartment instead of coming to the house. When I helped unload bundles into the garage—which basically consisted of me sitting on the couch and directing, thanks to the crutches—I kept one ear focused on whatever noises were going on outside to see if I could hear his car, but no such luck.

When we rolled up the last of the papers, it was three in the morning, and Marcus still wasn’t back.

“Come with me,” Jordan suggested. “It’ll take your mind off of things. I’m sure he’s fine.”

I looked at the clock for what felt like that millionth time that night and worried my lower lip between my teeth. “He should have been home by now,” I finally said. “I mean, even if he was still pissed at me, it’s been hours. He should be home. He’s usually in bed by now.”

“Maybe he went to the diner to pick up some hours, or just to sit and think,” Jordan suggested while we took a break in the kitchen so Jordan could refill his bottle of Mountain Dew before he took off for deliveries. “I mean, I get why you were mad about what he said, but he couldn’t have been happy with the way the conversation had gone either. He was probably hurt, and then he felt guilty on top of it.”

“But he would have at least come back to his apartment,” I stressed. “Even if he didn’t come see me, he would have come home.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Jordan said in a more-than-obvious effort to calm me down.

If it had been a movie, that’s when the phone would have rung, and it would have either been Marcus apologizing, or someone calling to tell me something had happened to Marcus.

My phone rang. I swore loudly, hoping as I pulled my phone out that it was Marcus calling to apologize. But when I looked at the caller ID, I saw it was Brandon’s number. That couldn’t be good.

“Hello?” I said nervously, swallowing hard.

“Are you at home?” Brandon asked me. There was something in his voice, and I couldn’t place exactly what emotion it was, but it had me wanting to sink to the ground.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Mom’s on her way over,” Brandon said. “Don’t leave the house before she gets there, and do not drive yourself.”

“It’s Marcus, isn’t it?” I whispered.

There was a long pause before Brandon sighed. “I’ve been doing my clinicals at the emergency room all week,” he admitted. “Zach, there’s been an accident.”

I handed Jordan my phone and promptly stumbled down the hall with my crutches so I could go throw up for the second time that night.

T
HERE
ARE
days I’m positive the only thing that kept me sane was the fact that my mother had no problem telling her kids what to do, no matter how old they got. Sometimes it irritated me. But when she stepped into my bathroom to discover me huddled on the cold tile floor, I couldn’t have been more grateful.

“You can break down later,” she told me firmly, but not unkindly. “Right now we need to get to the hospital.”

“We’d just had a fight,” I told her, my voice choked. “A bad one. What if he was so preoccupied with it that he wasn’t paying attention as well as he usually would?”

“Then he should have known better than to be driving,” my mother said. “But Marcus isn’t stupid enough to drive when he’s that distracted, and you know better than to feel guilty for something you had no part in. For all we know he could have hit his brakes and swerved to avoid a deer.”

She pulled me up and let me lean against the sink as she collected my crutches from the floor. “Now,” she said calmly, “you’re going to put those crutches to use and move your ass to my car, at which point I’ll drive you to the hospital. Do you understand?”

I nodded hesitantly. All I had to focus on was getting to the car. I could do that. Maybe.

“One foot in front of the other,” she reminded me once she was sure I wasn’t going to fall over. “Go on.”

Later, once all the drama and panic had passed, I realized I had no memory of the drive to the hospital. It was kind of like I went from Mom telling me to move my ass to being dragged to the emergency room’s admittance desk.

“We’re looking for Marcus Edwards,” my mother told the woman behind the desk.

The woman—round, haggard, and looking as if she’d seen far too much over the course of her life—simply raised an eyebrow at my mother. “Family?” she asked.

This woman was going to try to keep us away from Marcus, and I was going to be forced to do bodily harm.

Or not. My mother pulled some paperwork from her purse and slapped it on the countertop. “I’m Linda Blaise. This is my son, Zachary Blaise. You’ll find that we’re both listed as having power of attorney.”

“Wait, what?” I asked my mother.

“Well, I’m a backup,” she admitted to me. “You’re the first listed.”

“No. Hold on,” I said as the grumpy lady behind the counter looked over the document. “When did this happen? I didn’t sign anything.”

“You didn’t need to,” Mom informed me. “It names you as having power of attorney, with both Jordan and me as secondary. Your father and Brandon signed as witnesses.”

“But when did this happen?” I asked again, slightly louder. The woman behind the desk glowered at me, and I managed to keep from giving her the finger. She could go fuck herself.

“Right after your car was vandalized. Marcus started to worry that his ex would pull something with him, and no one would think to call you. He certainly didn’t want those people he has the misfortune of being related to getting called in to care for him.”

“Right,” I said, overwhelmed. How had I not known about this? “Okay. Fine. So we have power of attorney, can we go back and see him?”

“I’ll need to see IDs,” the woman behind the desk droned cheerlessly.

I felt like reaching across her desk and shaking her, but my mother must have realized what my brain was telling me to do. She grabbed my arm, smiled understandingly at me, and said “No murder before noon, dear. Show the nice woman your ID.”

Had I even brought my ID? I patted at my back pocket, grateful to discover that my wallet was still there. I yanked my driver’s license out of its pocket and tossed it at the desk at the same time my mother calmly set hers down.

The gargoyle behind the desk—yeah, I was losing my patience—looked at our IDs for far too long and then handed them back, along with the paperwork Mom thankfully had the foresight to bring. “Have a seat,” she said, motioning at the waiting room with a jerk of her head. “Someone will see you shortly.”

I managed to keep from exploding at her, but I did end up giving her a sarcastic smile and an overly sweet “Thanks, you’ve been a huge help. So friendly too.”

My mother cleared her throat (whether to keep from laughing or to warn me to play nice, I wasn’t sure) and waved a hand. “Go find us a place to sit,” she told me.

I grumbled, practically dragged myself to a seat, dropped onto my ass, and let my crutches fall against the seats next to me.

Mom sighed and collected the crutches. She leaned the pair neatly to one side and took the seat to my right.

“Is Jordan coming?” I asked.

“He will be,” my mother said in a voice that hinted she’d already discussed this with me, but I couldn’t remember if that was the case or not. “He’s going to do his deliveries, and then he’ll be here. He couldn’t get a replacement so quickly.”

“Right,” I said. That made sense.

“Your father will be here after work,” she said. “You know how he is about the emergency room. He’ll be here if something happens and he’s needed, but he’d rather put it off.”

Couldn’t say as I blamed Dad for that. When I was still in high school, Mom ended up in the emergency room, and I had to call him because I was home that day. Seeing the fear on his face when he rushed into the hospital was something I’d never forget, no matter how much I wanted to. Now I knew how he’d felt.

It seemed like forever until someone came for us, but it couldn’t have been that long. Mom would have pitched a very diplomatic fit if it appeared we’d been forgotten. I was just about to suggest that very thing to her when I was distracted by someone stopping in front of us. I looked up to find someone I assumed was a nurse. He certainly worked in the medical field somewhere, given the overly cheerful scrubs he was wearing. “Are you here for Marcus Edwards?”

I nodded and swallowed hard. “Yes. How…?” I couldn’t finish the question. My stomach threatened to rebel simply from the thought of what could be wrong with him.

The nurse held up his hand in an attempt to calm me. “Let’s move you to the appropriate waiting room, shall we? Marcus is in surgery right now.”

“Surgery?” I rasped.

The nurse narrowed his eyes, as if examining me. “Do you need a wheelchair?”

“Yes,” my mother said before I could say otherwise. “Please. He’s understandably a mess.”

A wheelchair was brought for me, and I dropped into it clumsily as Mom picked up my crutches. “Now, I can’t say anything official,” the nurse said as he started to push me out of the ER’s waiting area, “but unofficially I’ll tell you that I think Marcus will be fine.”

“But…. Surgery?” I asked. Words were failing me, but anyone working the hospital was probably used to that.

“He fractured ribs in the accident,” he explained. “A lung got nicked, so they have to repair the air leak that resulted. Two small incisions typically take care of that, so don’t go imagining that they’ve got him spread open on the operating table.”

His explanation made me feel less like my stomach was going to see if there was anything left to bring up. “What exactly happened, anyway? All I know is that there was an accident.”

“His car went off the road and went into a tree, from what I understand. Marcus ended up with the worst of the injuries. His passenger got away with a bump to the head that knocked her out, and some pretty nasty bruises, but that’s about it.”

I scowled. Of course his sister would end up pretty much untouched. It fucking figured.

He jostled me onto an elevator and took me up a couple floors, then wheeled me into another waiting room. This one was much quieter than the emergency room, for which I was grateful.

“I’ll be back to check on you in a bit,” the nurse said.

“Thanks,” I said. “My name’s Zach, by the way.”

I got a grin and a nod in return. “Yeah, I know who you are,” he said. “I’m kind of a fan of your show. My name’s Tate.”

I shook the hand he held out to me and gave him a weak smile. Any other day I would have been thrilled to find someone else who listened to us, but I had other things on my mind.

“There’s one thing I’m wondering,” my mother said to Tate. “My other son is here for his training. Would it be possible to let him know where we are?”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Blaise. There’s only one class doing time in the ER this early in the morning, so it shouldn’t be hard to track him down.” He gave my mom a reassuring smile and patted my shoulder. Then he left us to our waiting.

I spent the next couple of hours staring at the small television that was attached to the waiting room wall. It was stuck on one of the twenty-four-hour news stations, but I wasn’t actually watching it. It was just something to stare at while my brain went a million miles an hour worrying about Marcus. Tate kept coming by to see if we needed anything and to let us know how much longer they thought Marcus might be in surgery. By the time Jordan joined us, I was pretty much a zombie.